"Sister Suffragette"

Have you ever heard of Emmeline Pankhurst?

No?  Well, my history textbooks didn't mention her, either, but that's not surprising.  Women weren't usually mentioned in my history classes, back in the 1940s and 1950s, unless as the "wife of" -- a king or a president, maybe.  But if you've ever seen the 1964 movie "Mary Poppins," you've at least heard the name "Missus Pankhurst," as the song writer called her.  Let me refresh your memory with this short clip, and then I'll tell you the story of Emmaline Pankhurst.



"Well done"? Okay, eventually women did get the right to vote (in 1920 in the United States). But was it worth all the pain and suffering?  (If the video quits working, click here.)  Take a look at this photo of "the militant campaigner for women's suffrage, Emmeline Pankhurst, being arrested outside Buckingham Palace, London, May 1914."

The blurb I read added, "A short time previously she had been released from prison after serving less than a year of a three-year sentence for a series of arson attacks in 1913." That guy carrying her doesn't look like a Bobby to me. His hat and uniform look more like military. As I studied this photo, I went from thinking the man in the middle was yelling at her, to wondering if he's trying to tell the big fellow that he is HURTING the woman. Look at her face. Her pain is even more evident in the photo below, which seems to be the untouched-up original. I'm pretty sure you can enlarge the photo ABOVE by clicking on it.

I can't help but wonder if he is breaking some of her ribs, carrying her that way.  I wanted to know more about this interesting woman, who went right back into the fray even though she had spent most of a year jailed for her activism.  I know that I am not that brave.  Wikipedia has a very long article about her, beginning with this:

Emmeline Pankhurst (née Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement, which won women the right to vote. In 1999, Time named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating: "she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back."

As part of the Women Unbound reading challenge, I've been reading a lot about women fighting for their rights.  About a hundred years ago, Emmeline Pankhurst was doing all she could to gain the vote for women.  The period from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, when women in England and the United States were trying to get voting rights, is considered the "first wave" of feminism.  Wikipedia has this definition of the word:

"The term feminism can be used to describe a political, cultural, or economic movement aimed at establishing equal rights and legal protection for women."

The "second wave" began in the early 1960s and lasted through the late 1980s.  Some scholars say the second wave continues to exist alongside the "third wave" of feminism, which has already begun.  I was called a Women's Libber during the "second wave" because I dared to speak up about sexism and the fact that women made less than men for doing the same work and could be told with impunity, "We don't hire women to do that."  It didn't matter if women could do the job, maybe even better than the man hired.  We were told, "Men have to support their families."

My question for this week is, Was the fight worth it?  I ask because when women got the right to vote, most of them (I've read) voted the way their husbands did.  I don't think that is necessarily the case today, but after the pain "Missus Pankhurst" went through, don't you think we ought to take advantage of our right to vote?  Why do so many stay home on voting days, especially if the weather isn't perfect?  So I ask, Was it worth it?

Read more about Emmeline Pankhurst by clicking on her name.
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UPDATE:  I have found a BBC News photo of this event, taken from a different angle!